Reminisce With Your Bookcases This Christmas

A cable channel was showing the same movie so often, I thought they should just rename the network to the name of the show.

You know, like the Green Mile Network or the Planet of the Apes Network. The Hallmark channels might as well be called Hallmark Christmas 1 and Hallmark Christmas 2.

I clearly wasn’t paying attention to the movie and was about to change the channel when I happened to glance at the bookcase surrounding the TV. It’s a huge two-sided bookcase that was used by Catherine’s father in his law practice. Once the main attraction in our old home’s living room, it’s now demoted to my basement “man cave” to fill a wall and store old stuff. The TV sits in the middle where we sawed out two shelves. This bookcase is packed with stuff that reveals some of our lives together.

Bookcases can display a lot of things, including your history and your vanity. On the political networks you often see a prominent bookcase in the background of people being interviewed from their homes. The bookcases are packed with books, many of which were probably never read. These folks also prominently display books they’ve published, as if they are saying, “Please buy my newest book, ‘How I Can Save the World’.”

This is all intended to convey to viewers that this person is well-read and should be trusted for their input. But it doesn’t take much insight to realize that these bookcases are just a prop for the TV pundits.

What’s in Your Bookcase?

In your house you might have many bookcases and they serve varying purposes. Certainly, they might hold books. But they often display knickknacks, family photos and even elementary school art projects – things you are proud of and want others to see.

The large bookcase in our basement contains some books. It also includes years of photo albums, which abruptly ended when digital photography took over. There are CDs of everything from Abba to ZZ Top. Catherine assures me they’ve all been copied to our computers which means we don’t really need them anymore. The many DVDs include the complete Star Trek original series, The Blues Brothers movie and a small collection that belongs to our kids (now in their 30s) which includes Superbad and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. There are lots of games from yesteryear like Sorry, Life, Parcheesi, Clue, Yahtzee, Trivial Pursuit and Oh Hell. There are even a few VCR tapes that work in a player I don’t have anymore. There’s also a bag with cords for a sound system I no longer have. 

What struck me was that we’ll probably never watch any of the DVDs, listen to any of the CDs or play any of the games again. The bookcase has really become a storage area for outdated stuff. It’s definitely not a shrine. But that’s OK. It’s actually fun to look through everything, once I blow the dust off. They bring back memories and show how far we’ve come.

Catherine reads a lot of books, so you’ll understand why we have a lot of bookcases around the house. I’ve read only a tiny fraction of the books she’s read but I recognize many of them since I’ve moved them so many times.

There are seven bookcases in the basement besides the big one. On the main floor there are five. The total number of bookcases has stabilized since books became available online. Thank goodness. One of them displays eye-catching items like a Red Wing Pottery bust of Franklin Roosevelt, an English pitcher called a Toby Jug and a commemorative cup from the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902. The bottom shelf is dedicated year-round to just Christmas books.

Two bookcases are reserved for cookbooks. They also have a lot of history, including an old Betty Crocker’s Cookbook from 1950, numerous church cookbooks, cooking magazines and a loose pile of printed recipes from the internet.

Elf on a Bookcase

The tops of the prominent bookcases are cleared this time of year so Catherine can display her many Christmas decorations on the main floor bookcases which are, of course, the ones visitors might see. In the past they have included a tiny nativity scene, a Dept. 56 church, small glass Christmas trees and loads of candles. Since she loves Santas, every prominent bookcase displays at least one and because Santa is really an elf himself, there could be an elf on every shelf. There are so many that we have found them in June.

This Christmas, after all the excitement of gift exchanges and great food, take some time to look lower than just the holiday-draped tops of bookcases. Pull out some items that bring back memories and share them with your kids, grandkids and relatives.

They may not realize it, but revisiting the past might just be one of the best Christmas gifts of all.